Yemen, Republic of

In the past, refugee issues in Yemen were centered on the hundreds of thousands of African refugees fleeing to Yemen. This refugee influx was a burden on an already impoverished country and taxed its fragile economic conditions over two decades.

“You don’t know what it’s like when you can’t feed your children for three days,” said Khaled Ali, a day laborer from the Yemeni city of Taiz. “I’ve lost my job, and I’ve sold my wife’s gold just to pay the rent. I am scared, what else should I expect in the coming days?” he continues. “Imagine! We’ve had to eat leaves from the trees to survive.”

On International Refugee Day (June 20th), the world was focused on the plight of the 60 million and rising number of displaced people. As the British-Somali poet Warsan Shire put it, “No one leaves home, unless home is the mouth of a shark”. But there are also millions who are unable to escape, lacking the means or due to fears of bigger sharks further afield. Meanwhile, their home is being brutalized by violence and reconfigured to fit some ideological straightjacket. They may not be geographically displaced, but these people are victims too. Especially when they are children, whose schools and socializing processes are radically transformed to conform to the new regime.

Corruption in the public sector is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon. It can take on a myriad of forms and come to light in various areas. It ranges from petty corruption among government officials who use their influence for monetary gain to corruption in lobbying and fundraising in election campaigns. Its reach extends from public procurement to managing conflicts of interest. It is used to bribe whistleblowers and is present in all cases of cronyism and misappropriation of public funds.

It may not be surprising that the number one country in the world with the most Youtube users is Saudi Arabia. But what is surprising, with Youtube’s overall global viewership predominantly male, is that the majority of Youtubers in Saudi Arabia are women. And even more surprising, is that the most-watched Youtube content category in Saudi Arabia is education.

As fighting continues in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, the number of refugees and internally displaced persons stands at 15-16 million—a number that is unprecedented and growing. The displaced are mainly in seven countries (Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia, and Turkey), with significant numbers seeking refuge in Europe and smaller numbers going everywhere from Oman to Somalia.

In 2010, just before the Arab Spring, the ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller Arab Youth Survey* identified a soaring social dissatisfaction among the region’s youth. Democracy was then the top priority. Ninety-two percent of those polled responded that “living in a democracy” was their greatest wish. The same poll conducted earlier this year shows a marked decline in aspirations for democracy.

Inequality begins early in life. In the Middle East and North Africa region it begins before birth, as prenatal care is not universal, and continues right through early childhood with different levels of access to vital nutrition, health services and early education. Missing out on any one of these key development factors can leave a child at a permanent disadvantage in school and adult life. There is also the risk that inequality entrenched early in life is passed on to the next generation, creating a cycle of poverty. A new World Bank report has calculated the different chances that a child from the region’s poorest 20% of households (least advantaged child) and a child from the region’s richest 20% of households (most advantaged child) have for healthy development.

One thousand years ago, the famous Arab scientist and mathematician Al-Hazen moved from Basra to Cairo to take up a new job in a neighborhood near Al-Azhar University. At the time, the Middle East was a flourishing technology giant, with scientists, inventors, artists and philosophers moving freely from the heart of the Spanish peninsula to the deep enclaves of Central Asia. Al-Hazen was invited to Egypt by its young Caliph who, among many other rulers in the region, was a champion of knowledge and innovation. Al-Hazen and other inventors from the Middle East had both strong political support and access to resources, which led to some of the greatest scientific discoveries of their times. Why are things so different today?